Sunday, August 4, 2013

Let MPs look into public university placement to ensure transparency, says DAP

Let MPs look into public university placement to ensure transparency, says DAP

BY V. ANBALAGANAugust 04, 2013Latest Update: August 04, 2013 04:12 pm

Malaysian Insider

DAP is calling for more transparency in allotting spots in Malaysian
public universities and that can be achieved by forming a committee of
members of parliament from both sides of the political divide.

Its national vice-chairman M. Kula Segaran said the committee should
also go through decisions made following appeals by applicants. In
addition, the Education Ministry should publish qualifying marks for all
university programmes.

"This is the only way to regain public confidence, by addressing
issues of unfairness and lack of transparency," he said in a statement
today.

Kula Segaran, who is also Ipoh Barat MP, said Education Minister Tan
Sri Muhyiddin Yassin should accept that his ministry had lost
credibility on the intake of students into public universities.

He said unfair placement not only caused heartache to students and
parents but also contributed to national disunity and brain drain.

Kula Segaran said this in response to a statement by the ministry two
days ago that 39 students with cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of
4.0 did not gain places in public universities.

A ministry spokesman said this was because the courses they wanted were
already full or some did not meet the requirements. He also said these
students refused to consider other courses.

Among the popular courses were medicine and dentistry. The spokesman
said the 39 students could have failed in their interviews or didn’t
score well in extra-curricular activities.

"Such explanations do not come as a surprise as they have always been
used to explain the perennial problem of top scorers' failure to secure
any place or their preferred courses at public universities," said Kula
Segaran.

He said the ministry must understand that unfairness and lack of
transparency were the two most important issues about university intake.

“The two usual explanations given are that there are too many
applicants for limited places and secondly, some students have lost out
due to their lower marks in their extra-curricular activities," he said.

However, he said such explanations are hardly convincing or acceptable
as there have been allegations that students with lower CGPA scores and
fewer extra-curricular activities were offered courses at public
universities.- August 4, 2013.